Ball anemone harvesting

[Yodaman]

I’m hoping I landed in the right section. I have a local reefer that I want to help, as he went through some pretty substantial loss in our last bad storm system. I have some Ball anemones in my tank that he is looking for, and most of the ones I can access are all pleasantly seated on the largest rock in the tank.

How can I safely get a handful of these guys off the rock without injuring them? Picture is to reference the ball anemone species in question. They are pretty small, no larger than a nickel I’d say. I have done some reading that says they are technically a mushroom and not an anemone, but no real luck in finding information on how to remove them, except for if they were to be treated like pests.

Any advice or tips for these?

 

[MoshJosh]

Interesting, without removing your rock I think options are limited, you could try to make a really small “nem cannon” but not sure how well it will work. Maybe you could add a new rock touching the mist infested rock in hopes they will propagate onto it?

 

[vetteguy53081]

I’m hoping I landed in the right section. I have a local reefer that I want to help, as he went through some pretty substantial loss in our last bad storm system. I have some Ball anemones in my tank that he is looking for, and most of the ones I can access are all pleasantly seated on the largest rock in the tank.

How can I safely get a handful of these guys off the rock without injuring them? Picture is to reference the ball anemone species in question. They are pretty small, no larger than a nickel I’d say. I have done some reading that says they are technically a mushroom and not an anemone, but no real luck in finding information on how to remove them, except for if they were to be treated like pests.

Any advice or tips for these?

take a hammer and screwdriver and chip at the rock without getting too close to them. As they are actually mushrooms, their foot is at the surface

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

The nem cannon is an interesting idea - you could also take some other nem removal ideas and try things like icing the foot to get it to move, blasting it with flow, etc.

No idea how successful these would be though.

 

[Cthulukelele]

At least with larger nems, I've had success in the past with essentially "tickling" the base once it starts to peel tickling the bottom

 

[Tub Life]

take a hammer and screwdriver and chip at the rock without getting too close to them. As they are actually mushrooms, their foot is at the surface

I would use this method for removal.

I have a few of these on the underside of some rocks as well. Neat little guys.

I had always thought they were more like LPS, for some reason I had the impression that they had a calcareous base, I did not know they were mobile with a foot.